Violence has been with us since the dawn of civilization. Our primordial nature and our most basic instincts, however, cannot explain a phenomenon that has been affecting the United States for the past 20 years: school shootings and a murder-suicide modus operandi that has baffled psychologists and specialists throughout the world. What goes on in the mind of a teenager when he decides to murder his classmates and then kill himself? Certainly, violence in the past would always serve some sort of purpose. But what we have seen in American high schools seems to defy reason. Is there even a semblance of purpose in the act of killing others and then committing suicide? Or isn’t it rather an emphasis on purposelessness, on unrestrained hatred, on irrationality at its worst?

When Warren Ellis started writing Hellblazer, he probably asked himself the same questions. The killing spree in schools had increased from the 80s to the 90s, and in 1998, Warren decided that it was time to take John Constantine away from his usual fracas with demons and supernatural menaces to tackle on a very real situation.

High school student kills a classmate and then commits suicide /un estudiante de secundaria mata a otro alumno y luego se suicida

As Penny Carnes investigates the shocking child-on-child slayings and prepares a report for a Senate hearing, she soon feels frustrated. There are no answers, no motives: nothing can explain this unprecedented manifestation of violence. Why is it that in 1995, a 16 year turns into a homicide and then kills himself in Blackville-Hilda High School? Why is it that every year there are more similar cases? Penny Carnes has no answers, but John Constantine does. Ellis wrote SHOOT just before the Columbine massacre and back then DC / Vertigo editors decided it was too strong a story to be published, even though Phil Jimenez had already illustrated the story. A decade later, this decision was reversed and SHOOT finally saw the light of day after 10 years of censorship. And I applaud Vertigo for finally publishing it because I consider SHOOT one of the best standalone issues I’ve read in my life. Certainly everyone remembers the Columbine massacre (July 1999), in which two teenagers were responsible for the deaths of 15 people before ending their own lives. The same happened in the Red Lake massacre in 2005, in which an underage student killed 8 people before committing suicide or in the Red Lion Area Junior High School shooting (the shooter was 14, the MO was the same, killing others and then killing himself) and so on. A few years ago, Michael Moore tried to share with the public some of his insights in “Bowling for Columbine” a documentary that focused on gun legislations, the National Rifle Association and the inherent violence in the American way of life.

Warren Ellis also analyzes the arguments brought on by the media at the time. Everyone needed someone or something to blame. For some, allegedly Satanist musicians such as Marilyn Manson were to be blamed, for others it was computer games or horror movies. Penny Carnes tries to come up with an answer. She hopes that she can identify the problem and get rid of it. But she can’t. That’s when Constantine shows up and explains to her that there isn’t a magical solution. This isn’t a situation that can be fixed as quickly and as efficiently as the US senate demands.For John Constantine the problem lies deep within us, as a culture. Just like Gus Van Sant proves in his magnificent film “Elephant”, today it’s easier to buy a gun and bullets than to find the opportunity to kiss someone else. One of the most unforgettable moments in “Elephant” takes place when the two soon-to-be killers confess to each other that they are virgins and have never even kissed anyone, and yet, they’re ready to kill others and then kill themselves (just as it happened in the Columbine massacre). As Constantine explains, ours is “a world where kids actually go to special classes to learn to recognize real emotions and body language because they were raised by the television”. I would add that after 10 years, we have found even more ways to replace human interaction with technology. Nowadays, people are obsessed with pages like Facebook, which is nothing more than an attempt to fill in an existential void, but substituting relationships for hundreds of “friends” and “likes” doesn’t improve one’s life. Isolation, lack of emotions and selfishness seem to be the guidelines of the 21st century.When I read SHOOT two years ago my heart stopped for a minute in the last 3 pages. There is an extremely dramatic moment that ultimately explodes in the last frame. Warren Ellis makes you feel as if someone had died in front of your eyes. You feel what the high school kid about to die is feeling, and it is a horrendous realization. For an instant, you lose faith in humankind. And then, as you put the book away, you start thinking about all the horrible and unexplainable things that happen in real life. And you realize that even if none of that makes sense, you can still cling to your feelings, break out of your isolation and start caring a little bit more about the world around you. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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About the Author - Arion

Arion, who is either from Chile or New York (it’s not really clear) writes a blog that the Outhouse steals on a regular basis. Arion is by far the nicest of all the staff writers and the most well behaved only having been banned from one country. One thing we really appreciate about Aroin is that he writes his reviews in English and Spanish and we hope someday he’ll translate this blurb for us. We’re not so good at languages, just look at how well we write in English if you need proof. You should bookmark Arion’s blog - http://artbyarion.blogspot.com – and actually look at it. There will be a quiz at the end of every month.